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A major Nashville interstate was shut down for hours on Thursday (March 17) after a tanker truck overturned, spilling over 8,000 gallons of fuel onto the roadway.
A vehicle driving along Interstate 24 Thursday morning crashed into a tanker truck near the the Rutherford County/Davidson County line, causing the 8,800 gallons of gas being carried in the tanker to spill onto the asphalt and shut down the roadway for several hours. While a crash like that would normally halt traffic, the roadway required extra work as crews had to repave the asphalt due to the fuel affecting the asphalt, per News Channel 5.
"Asphalt begins to deteriorate under fuel at about 3 to 4 gallons," said Rebekah Hammonds, community relations officer for the Tennessee Department of Transportation. "You can imagine what 8,800 gallons would do."
According to the news outlet, TDOT crews had to mill and repave 1,900 feet of roadway along the westbound shoulder and in all eastbound lanes after the fuel spill made the road unsafe to drive on.
"The asphalt deteriorated in such a state that you could move around the top layer of the asphalt. Imagine I-24 traffic trying to drive on that, [it] just would not have been safe."
TDOT finished the repair process around 2 a.m. Friday (March 18), and the road was fully reopened shortly after. In total, portions of I-24 near the crash were closed for around 16 hours.